Today is a very exciting day for Last Epoch as we are launching our always-online closed Alpha, where hundreds of players have already been invited. While there are still bugs, balance, and a few features to make progress on before releasing multiplayer (MP) to the wild, we are now keeping servers running for the Alpha program around the clock to get feedback and test our live services.
It doesn’t seem long ago that Last Epoch was just an after-hours passion project by a bunch of ARPG-obsessed Redditors. We’ve had to do a lot of learning and reconstructing along the way to bring this grandiose vision to fruition. Multiple iterations of online Multiplayer fell flat as we uncovered flaws or deficiencies in systems or services we had developed. With a much larger and more experienced team that we’ve amassed over the last couple of years, we are much more confident and thrilled with our progress.
The number one thing we hear from the community is that people are waiting on us to deliver online multiplayer. Today’s milestone brings us significantly closer to delivering this to all Epoch players. We greatly appreciate your patience as we know it feels like we’ve been in Early Access forever. Still, as ARPG players, we know what players expect out of a good online experience and want to ensure that we deliver it. Figuring out everything that entails and how to create it has been time-consuming but rest assured, we’re pushing hard to bring the next era of Last Epoch to all players in the upcoming 0.9 patch. Today’s release has the team energized and looking forward to seeing players in the world of Eterra!
Thank you all for your continued support of Last Epoch, our team, and our goals here at Eleventh Hour.
Are invites still going out? I’ve applied but have not been placed inside the program yet. Would be eager to test the features/functionality with 2 friends that I got to buy the game recently. I had them apply as well.
Yes, applications are constantly being reviewed and we’re continuing to expand the program. Even if a response isn’t received right away, it’s still possible to be accepted in a future wave. There’s a lot to go through, and we’re getting through them as quickly as we can!
So will challenges create their own league or realm for multiplayer? As in, a realm for softcore, a realm for hardcore, a realm for softcore masochist, hardcore masochist, etc?
We haven’t made a final decision on the status of Masochist mode going forward. I’m assuming that by realm you mean separated interactions. As in only hardcore players can party with hardcore players, yes that is the plan.
